Simon,
You are right far and away the most important factor is common and agreed
upon purpose or a goal. But trust is important also. If the team members
do not trust each other communication suffers. They also have difficulty
making assignments and waste energy on people they believe must be bird
dogged.
Trust need not be in every area. But there must be enough to believe
everyone will try and will not subvert this effort.
They do not have to like each other if the aim of the team is agreed up on
and understood. But it is better if they do.
Gene
At 08:30 AM 10/31/97 -0800, you wrote:
>I have been thinking about trust a little recently and have come to the
>conclusion that what motivates collaboration and interaction is not trust,
>but common interest and mutual gain. This neither necessitates nor
>precludes trust or respect between the collaborators. The existence of
>trust does generate a willingness to transact and continue transacting,
>but many transactions, espcially one-off buyer/ seller transactions, are
>entered into for mutual gain alone. I interact with thousands of people
>from all sorts of groups- including this one- and I do not trust very many
>of those people- or need to. Trust only seems essential in relationships
>with "significant others". With even my closest friends, understanding is
>most important not trust.
>
>There are those (Funkuyama et al) who believe that an absense of trust
>necessitates formal contractual relations between parties transacting to
>replace the trust- but I think you can lack trust and still interact
>informally if mutual gain and non-exclusivity is in place. Indeed, this is
>a powerful motivator of behavior- the choice business partners (but not
>contractual strategic alliance partners) have to work with your
>competitors stimulates accountability for delivering mutual gain honestly
>and efficiently.
>
>Simon Buckingham <go57@dial.pipex.com>
Eugene Taurman
interLinx ilx@execpc.com http://www.execpc.com/~ilx
What you are is determined by the thoughts that dominate your mind.
Paraphrase of Proverbs 23 Ch7
--Eugene Taurman <ilx@execpc.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>